


On the Fifteenth of April my True Frog Gave to Me

by Meltha



Category: Muppet Show
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meltha/pseuds/Meltha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kermit has made a really serious mistake and needs to apologize to Piggy, but things never quite go as planned at the Muppet Theatre.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Fifteenth of April my True Frog Gave to Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Northern_Star](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Star/gifts).



> Disclaimer: All rights are held by the Jim Henson Company. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is made from this work of fanfiction.

It was supposed to be a boys’ night in. After finishing directing yet another daunting show complete with wild heckling from the balcony at poor Fozzie’s jokes, a sketch for Veterinarians Hospital that had ended in the doctor biting the patient, and Gonzo plummeting from his tightrope into a vat of angry sturgeon while whistling “The William Tell Overture,” Kermit thought that he deserved a little rest and relaxation.

In a back closet, Kermit had found an old-fashioned black and white TV that looked like it had been sitting there gathering dust since the 1950s. After dragging it to his desk backstage, he’d fiddled with its warped antenna until, lo and behold, he’d been able to get a fuzzy but still visible picture of the Packers game. Kermit had always been very fond of Green Bay on general principle. Putting aside all the cares of the night, he pulled a battered folding chair in front of the tiny screen and settled in with a bag of pretzels and a mug of cold swamp water to enjoy the game. Soon, Fozzie had taken up a spot next to him, followed by Gonzo, the entire Electric Mayhem, Scooter, and a bevy of others. Weirdly, though no one remembered inviting them, even Statler and Waldorf showed up, and it turned out were just as adept at tossing jabs at football players (and commentators and coaches and the occasional cheerleader) as they were at Fozzie. As everyone was cheering and groaning in unison, Kermit couldn’t help thinking that it was really turning out to be a great night.

“A-hem!” said a familiar and very loud voice directly behind him.

“Oh, hi Piggy,” Kermit said, and he was pretty sure he’d been able to keep the edge of disappointment out of his voice. He’d kind of been hoping that she’d gone home for the night. “Uh, if you wanna watch the game, I think there’s a stool stuck under the stairs someplace.”

“No, I am not interested in watching the game,” she said, sounding highly affronted. “Is there not something you wish to say to moi?”

“Um, no, not right now,” he said, staring straight ahead as though hypnotized by the game.

“Are vous absolutely sure of that?” Piggy said, standing directly in front of the screen in an effort to get his attention and being pelted with popcorn from everyone else as she was told in no uncertain terms to move.

“Darn it, Piggy! Not everything in the whole universe revolves around you and what you want! Just get out of the way, or better yet, just get out in general!” Kermit said, really losing his temper.

Miss Piggy’s mouth hung open very wide for a moment, and complete silence filled the room with the exception of the commentator’s static-laced description of one player’s spectacular fumble. She bit her lip, her snout quivering delicately, and with a muffled sob, she fled out the back door, slamming it behind her.

“Gosh, Kermit, you were awfully hard on her,” Fozzie said, looking at his friend.

“Yeah, well, it’s been a hard day,” Kermit said. “I don’t think wanting to watch a little football rather than catering to her every whim is all that much to ask for.”

“Yeah, even if it is her birthday,” Lew Zealand said.

“What?” Kermit said, looking stricken.

“Yeah, it’s her birthday,” Lew repeated. “I noticed it on the calendar in her dressing room last week when I was in there getting one of my boomerang fish that didn’t come back to me. That was a really bad throw.”

“Whoa, man,” Floyd said, staring at him. “Frog, that is a new low!”

Janis, who was sitting next to him, was so stunned that she’d actually opened her eyes all the way.

“Fer surely,” Janis said. “That’s, like, seriously bad.”

“Shame on you, Kermit!” Fozzie added, giving him a very stern look. “How could you forget that!”

“Well, all of you forgot too!” Kermit said defensively.

“Yeah, but I ain’t datin’ the hamhock,” Floyd said, shaking his head. “There’s rules to the game, my green brother, and number one is that you don’t forget the chick’s birthday.”

“Yeah,” Gonzo threw in, looking disgusted, “and you really don’t yell at her and make her cry on her birthday either.”

“Bad frog! Bad frog!” Animal yelled, looking wilder than usual.

“Aw, nuts,” Kermit said, staring at the door where she’d disappeared. “I really goofed. Do you think I should go and apologize right now?”

“Only if you want your skinny legs stuffed down your throat with a karate chop,” Statler said.

“I forgot Astoria’s birthday once, and she nearly killed me,” Waldorf said. “Better let her cool off a while first.”

“Yeah? How long?” Kermit asked.

“Three, maybe four years,” Waldorf said with a shrug. “But why bother? I mean, after all, she’s only a pig.”

“Hey! I really care about Piggy! Don’t talk about her like that,” Kermit said.

“Well, you wouldn’t know it from what you just said to her,” Statler said. “It was a pretty easy mistake to make.”

For once Kermit had to admit the old geezer had a point. He really had just treated Piggy like she didn’t matter, and on top of it, he’d forgotten her birthday. He felt like pond scum, and he would know from experience.

“Okay,” Kermit said. “I really have to offer her an apology, but I’ll wait until tomorrow to do it so she’s a little…”

“Less likely to throw a brick at you?” Rolf finished for him.

“Uh, yeah,” Kermit said with a gulp. “Oh boy. This is going to have to be one heck of an apology. Guys, do you think you can help me out?”

“Sure,” Scooter said. “What do you have in mind?”

Kermit paused, thinking for a moment, and then said the scariest words in the English language.

“I have a plan.”

The next morning, Miss Piggy arrived at the Muppet Theatre earlier than usual, and she made a point of dashing up the stairs to her dressing room and firmly shutting the door. However, she was inside less than five minutes before there was a tentative knock on the door.

“If you’re green and have flippers, you’d better be a seasick walrus unless you want a punch in the nose,” Piggy all but growled as she opened the door, but it was not Kermit on the other side but Animal.

“Here,” Animal said, shoving a very pretty pink rose at her. “Frog dumb. Says sorry.”

“Well, if he thinks one rose is going to get him forgiven, he’s got another thing coming!” Piggy said as she took it then shut the door.

“Tip?” Animal asked, holding out his hand to the plain wood in front of him. “No tip. Bah. Cheap pig.”

About half an hour later, more knocking came at Piggy’s door. She glanced at the rose, which she had put into a vase on her dressing table, and flounced to the door.

“One posy isn’t going to get you out of this one, frog,” she said as she swung the door open, but on the other side was Beaker. “Oh. What do you want?”

“Meep meep meep me meep, meep meep meep ‘Me meep-meep,’” Beaker said, presenting her with another pink rose and a bottle of lavender nail polish.

“Hmm,” she said, taking them and quickly assessing the nail polish as being the cheap kind from the five and dime down the street. “Whatever.”

She closed the door in Beaker’s face, who seemed grateful that for once he was able to end a conversation without being shrunk, exploded, or otherwise bizarrely maimed.

Roughly half an hour later, another knock came, and once more Piggy opened the door rather abruptly.

“What?” she asked, only to find Scooter staring back at her, clutching another pink rose along with a bottle of pink nail polish and a candy bar.

“Delivery for Miss Piggy,” he said. “Kermit says he’s a jerk and he’s sorry.”

Piggy blinked at him, then took the presents and squinted hard. The wrapper on the chocolate said “Happy Halloween!” with a border of grinning pumpkins. Since it was currently April, she glared at her bespectacled messenger of love harshly before slamming the door once more.

“I think that went really well,” Scooter said to himself. “She didn’t even threaten to tie my lower intestines into a sheepshank!”

On the exact half hour, a pompous-sounding knock let Piggy know she had yet another visitor. She swung open the door to find Sam the Eagle standing outside.

“Oh, for crying out loud, what now?” Piggy grumbled.

“My employer has asked me to deliver to you these tokens of his affection and regret with the following message,” Sam said with a put upon sigh before he added, “’I’m a louse. Please forgive me.’ I hope you will find them satisfactory.”

Piggy glanced at the fourth pink rose, a bottle of a truly hideous shade of neon orange nail polish, another chocolate bar, this time emblazoned with Santas, and a shoe box.

“What’s in the box?” she asked.

“Shoes,” Sam said as though this were the most ridiculous question in the world.

Piggy’s eyes lit up, but when she lifted the lid from the box, she found a pair of wooden clogs, size 16DDDD, staring back at her. And she actually did mean staring since they had a pair of eyes and were currently blinking at her expectantly.

“ _Guten Tag. Wir sind Schuhe. Wollen Sie mit uns tanzen gehen_?” they said at her in a thick German accent.

“What the hey?” Piggy asked, looking at Sam in complete confusion.

“I told him he should have given you good American shoes instead of this ridiculous foreign pair,” Sam said, shaking his beak at Kermit’s stupidity and lack of patriotism as he strode away.

Piggy clapped the lid back on the box, still not quite sure what to do with a pair of talking shoes, but she did add a fourth rose into her vase. At any rate, it wasn’t shaping up to be a boring day.

Not long after, yet another knock pounded through the room, and when Piggy answered the door, Dr. Teeth stood on the other side.

“I’m pretty sure you’re getting the scene now,” he said, handing her another pink rose, a bottle of yellowish-beige nail polish, a small bag of Chanukah gelt, a shoebox that contained a pair of purple and green sneakers, and a bottle of perfume that smelled exactly like ketchup. “The frog knows he messed up big time, like playing polka at a blues fest. “

“This is getting ridiculous,” she said, and the sneakers both nodded in agreement before hopping out of their box to join the clogs in an impromptu dance number inspired by Busby Berkeley.

Dr. Teeth had barely turned around to go when up stepped Statler and Waldorf. Each held a rose, a bottle of frightening colored nail polish, a Valentine’s Day chocolate heart, a box of shoes that proved to be a sleepy pair of bedroom slippers and some overly flirty espadrilles, bottles of perfume that were labeled _L’Eau de Marais_ and Botulism: The Fragrance of Passion, as well as two scented candles. One smelled like rancid dill pickles and the other a floral bouquet so hideously strong Piggy’s eyes started to sting. Waldorf also presented her with a thin gold bangle bracelet. This took her by surprise.

“The frog’s sorry,” they chorused together.

“I’m starting to get that,” she said as she tried to discretely throw the floral candle out the window before she went blind from its pungent stench.

“Fine. We’ve done our good deed for the year,” Statler said. “Now we can feel completely justified in being as cranky as we want to.”

“Darn tootin’,” Waldorf agreed. “Let’s get out of here before we catch trichinosis.”

As the pair of them lurched off down the stairs, Piggy carefully slipped on her new gold bracelet.

“For an amphibian, he’s got decent taste in jewelry at least,” she said as she admired it for a moment, then shut the door again.

About ten minutes passed until, instead of a knock, she heard someone actually call out, “Kah-nuck, kah-nuck!”

“Who’s there?” Piggy asked.

“Zee Svedeesh cheff. I'fe-a gut sumetheeng fur yuoo, by gully,” he said.

Steeling herself, Piggy opened the door. The Swedish Chef was carrying a large box stuffed with nail polish that looked like fake vomit, very odd looking chocolates, a set of cowboy boots that were mooing, a bottle of Dom DeLuise’s signature perfume (which smelled of oregano), a mayonnaise scented candle, another thin gold bracelet, and a copy of _Pig’s Day_ magazine from January 1972.

“What are those?” Piggy asked, pointing at the weird chocolates.

“Kermeet vunted yuoo tu get sume-a chuculete-a cufered strevberreees,” the Chef said.

Piggy smiled broadly and stuffed the chocolates into her mouth. Unfortunately, she had forgotten the cardinal rule of the Muppet Theatre: never eat anything the Swedish Chef hands you.

“Yah, ve-a vere-a oooot ooff strevberreees, su I mede-a yuoo chuculete-a cufered brucculee. It taystes guud, und is heegh in feeber tuu,” he said.

Immediately, she gagged and managed to wretch daintily into a nearby umbrella stand.

“Chocolate covered broccoli?” she gasped out when she got her breath back. “Where did you go to cooking school?”

“Ooh, it's joost netoorel telent. Zee fruggy seys he-a mede-a de buh buh. He-a's surry. Dun't keell heem, pleese-a, yah. Ookey?” the chef said as he handed her the whole box, then tipped his hat and scurried away, quietly singing, “Bork bork bork.”

“What in the heck?” Piggy said. “It’s like people think I have an anger management problem or something.”

She added the bracelet to the one she was currently wearing, rather admiring the effect, and then closed the door. Piggy had only just begun to try using DeLuise’s perfume as a spot remover when there came another knock.

“What now?” she said, and when she opened it, there stood Janis.

“Okay, so, like, Kermit did a majorly not groovy thing yesterday,” she said, swaying back and forth in the way that passed for her standing still, “and I totally get why you’d be mad, like, girl to girl, you know? But he’s sorry, and this is for you. I tried to get him to make the candle patchouli scented ‘cause it centers your aura and things, but they were out or something. So, like, here’s his Capitalist apology, okay? Have a peaceful day!”

She waved, and Piggy closed the door again before she started getting the urge to tie-dye random things, like the drapes or her own legs. The package contained the same collection of things she had come to expecting, this time adding a copy of _Snout and Hoof Digest_ and a pint of chocolate ice cream. This last one was greeted with a cry of ecstasy. Unfortunately, Piggy found that it was completely melted, but undeterred, she drank it down with happy abandon.

No sooner had she finished delicately wiping her chin with a lace handkerchief than a massive explosion shook the room, knocking the dressing room door completely off its hinges. The blast rattled the room, shattering the nail polish and perfume bottles. The result was walls splattered with what looked like a really bad version of Jackson Pollock and a smell that could only be described as horrendous beyond the lot of mortal nostrils. Piggy had been hit square in the chest with what appeared to be a cannonball, but it cracked apart to reveal it was hollow and filled with yet another set of gifts, adding on a copy of _Swill for All Occasions_ , a mostly melted pint of strawberry ice cream, and a pair of tickets to see _Swine Lake_.

“I thought you’d be getting bored with the regular delivery, so I decided to liven things up a little,” Gonzo called from the balcony outside. “Kermit’s sorry!”

“Why you little--,” Piggy started to say, but Gonzo had already made his getaway in a cloud of iridescent sickly purple smoke, which happened to match her newest bottle of nail polish that was now dripping down her dressing room mirror.

Piggy stared around her at the devastation of her dressing room. She tried propping up the door, but it creaked wildly and splintered into fragments. The espadrilles yelled, “Holy _frijoles_!” and ran out the window followed by all the other shoes in a footless stampede. The last she heard of them, the cowboy boots were mooing plaintively down the alleyway.

“Um, Miss Piggy?” said a tentative voice from the hallway.

“What is it, Fozzie?” she ground out, sounding perhaps a little murderous.

“Uh…here!” he said, passing her another box and fleeing for his life, calling over his shoulder, “Kermit’s sorry! And I’ll get Beauregard to fix your door pronto!”

Once more, Piggy stared into the box before her, which this time included a relatively frozen pint of Butter Brickle ice cream, tickets to _Porky and Bess_ as well as a gift certificate for a day at a spa. Unfortunately, it was for Ralph’s Oil Change and Manicure Shop. Piggy sighed, but added an eleventh pink rose to her vase, which had somehow miraculously survived Gonzo’s blast.

“Um, you think there’s room for one more in that vase?” asked a timid voice behind her.

Piggy paused before she turned around.

“There might be,” she said to Kermit as he stood in the doorway.

“I’m really sorry, Piggy,” he said, looking down, then he glanced around the destroyed room. “Uh, wild guess. Gonzo got creative?”

“That’s one word for it,” she said with a toss of her head. “You know, you can’t just buy my forgiveness.”

“I know,” he said. “Heck, even if I could, all I had was $25.36.”

“Yeah, that might explain why my wrist is the same color as you now,” Piggy said, scratching the skin under her new “gold” bracelets. “At least the roses are real.”

“I remembered you said pink roses were your favorites that one time last autumn,” Kermit said, and Piggy’s heart melted a little at the tiny detail he’d remembered. “The whole gang helped me by scouring the city for things we thought you might like, but stuff isn’t an apology. I wanted you to know I was really sorry about what happened.”

She sniffled and looked away.

“You know, you really hurt my feelings with what you said, Kermit,” she said, and there was a tremor in her voice. “I do have other places I could go, places where I would be welcome… and have a working door.”

“I know. We’re lucky to have you, Piggy, and, I’m glad you’re here. If you left, I don’t know what we’d do. We’d miss you,” Kermit gulped then added, “I’d miss you. A lot.”

“Oh, Kermie,” Piggy said, giving him a watery smile as he offered her an envelope he was holding in his flipper. She opened it, but when she read the card inside, she frowned.

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“I just wanted to apologize for forgetting your birthday yesterday,” Kermit said.

“My birthday isn’t until July,” she said, a dangerous edge creeping into her voice. “How do you not know when my birthday is?”

“But Lew said he saw it marked on your calendar last week,” Kermit said, starting to get nervous.

“I take it he didn’t bother to check what month the calendar was turned to?” Piggy said, pointing to a scrap of charred paper still clinging to the wall. Sure enough, the month showing was July, not April.

“Why do you have the wrong month up?” Kermit asked.

“Because it’s moi’s Hunk of the Month calendar and July happens to be moi’s favorite, David Hasselhoff,” she said, glaring at him.

“So why were you trying to get my attention yesterday?” Kermit asked, completely confused

“I thought you might want to compliment me on my new hairstyle,” Piggy said, her eyes narrowing. “You did notice it, right?”

“Um, yes, sure, it’s… uh, shorter?” Kermit said with a gulp.

“Highlights,” Piggy said, stretching the word out as though she were speaking to a tadpole. “You honestly were off by three months on my birthday?”

“Uh, good grief,” Kermit said, looking around for a handy exit. “Sorry!”

“I’ll give you sorry! Hiiii--,” she said, preparing to karate chop him into July, but she stopped herself. “Oh, never mind. I can let it go considering how hard you tried to make up for it. But come July, buster, you’d better break out the cake and ice cream or there’s going to be trouble. Got it?”

“Got it!” he said gratefully and fled down the stairs.

“Pigs,” Rolf said as he watched Kermit take his seat at his desk just in time for curtain up. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Ain’t love grand?”

**Author's Note:**

>  _L’Eau de Marais_ means Swamp Water in French. Piggy’s clogs say, “Good afternoon. We are shoes. Do you want to go dancing with us?” in German (and thanks to my beta from the hippo chat for that!). The Swedish Chef’s dialogue was written in part with the help of the Encheferizer program at http://www.tuco.de/home/jschef.htm.


End file.
